Evolution Article

<span style="color: #FFFFFF">This article outlines the kind of evolution that I believe truly exists. But despite the scientific evidence there are a fair share of folks that are still disbelievers. (I figured this was the most appropriate spot for posting this.)</span>

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - More than a hundred species of tiny land-breeding frogs in the Caribbean evolved from a single South American species that probably hitched a ride on a raft of vegetation and washed up on an island beach, according to scientists who spent decades collecting tissues from the colorful hoppers.

After years of field research in dense rain forests and remote caves to catalog and collect specimens of different frogs, recent advances in genetic technology enabled researchers to compare their DNA. What they found suggests a sea voyage by an egg-laying South American frog some 30 to 50 million years ago probably led to most of the Caribbean's terrestrial frogs.

"Nothing in the anatomy of these animals told any expert who has studied them over the last century that they were actually close relatives," biologist Blair Hedges, who directed the genetic research, said Saturday from his office at Pennsylvania State University.

By lining up the genetic codes of each species of the genus Eleutherodactylus side-by-side, Hedges said he found something he'd never suspected - the genes of almost all the 160 Caribbean frogs matched, and could be traced through thousands of generations to a single common ancestor.

Hedges and his research team sequenced and compared the DNA of roughly 300 species of frogs collected from South American, Central American and Caribbean forests to support their theory.

A previous theory proposed that frogs traveled across land bridges that linked the major Caribbean islands of Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola and Puerto Rico to South America until 70 million to 80 million years ago. Scientists also believed eastern and western Caribbean frogs had different ancestors.

But an analysis of the "molecular clock" in their genetic codes shows that both eastern and western Caribbean frogs diverged from a common ancestor more recently, said Hedges. A summary of his findings were published online this week in advance of Tuesday's print edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Richard Thomas, an amphibian expert from the University of Puerto Rico who was not involved in Hedges' research, described the study as "significant" and said the claim of a common ancestor for Caribbean frogs seemed "highly plausible" considering the number of genetic codes sequenced.

Understanding the frogs' ancestry and tracing their evolutionary history should help the conservation biologists who are charting their declines due to climate change, pollution and habitat destruction, Hedges said.

With some 90 percent of the Caribbean's original rain forests destroyed, biologists are racing to catalog what remains.

"Species we don't even know about are almost certainly fading away" in the Caribbean, where amphibians face rapidly diminishing habitats on some of the world's most isolated land masses, Thomas said.

---

On the Net:

Proceedings of the National Academies of Science http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0611051104v1

Please let Beenie Weenie in here to read this!!! [img]/LDPforum/ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif[/img]

He's not.. dagnabbit

[img]/LDPforum/ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/grin.gif[/img]

I don't see how the findings outlined in the article support any sort of evolution? They were frogs, they migrated as frogs, they mutated and remained frogs, they are still frogs.

Mutation of one frog species over 50 million years into 160 different species is evolution.

Perhaps where our differences of opinion lie is in the basic definition of evolution. Mutation of the sustained variety is evolution. Evolution isn't this grand explosion of one species into another (such as fish into bird or other crazy things).
It's a very slow transitional change.
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Evolution: change in the gene pool of a population from generation to generation by such processes as mutation, natural selection, and genetic drift. </div></div>

As for the other (probably most) popular argument:
Do I myself think we are direct descendents of apes? No. (There's no proof yet)
But I do believe the genus homo has experienced evolution over millions of years.

For those interested, the National Geographic has an interesting article on bats this month. It discusses the evolution of bats that created the fruit eaters, nectar eaters, bug eaters, meat & blood eaters.

I don't agree that is evolution. In fact it is a word play by evolutionists to call mutation (which is proven and in evidence) evolution, because actual evolution (which is necessary for the evolutionary theory to be true) is not proven nor in evidence.

That is an example of mutation which for sake of argument can be called micro-evolution, but that is not a scientific term. Technically it is mutation. Mutation does not equal evolution.

And my opinion is that sustained mutation is evolution
Matter of differing opinions here. I'm making my statement, you're making yours, neither of us will change sides. [img]/LDPforum/ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif[/img]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Mutation does not equal evolution. </div></div>

Mutation in itself is not evolution BUT you have to have mutation in order to have evolution along with enviromental factors that favor a mutation over the same crecher without that mutation

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Counts</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> <div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Mutation does not equal evolution. </div></div>

Mutation in itself is not evolution BUT you have to have mutation in order to have evolution along with enviromental factors that favor a mutation over the same crecher without that mutation

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Exactly! That why I refer to sustained mutation.
A single mutated tadpole isn't evolution - it could be a screw up to die off and have no benefit to the species. But a single mutated tadpole whose mutation poses benefits, and creates more tadpoles of that kind because it survives better - that's the beginning of evolution.

No.....in the end you have to have that species to species leap for the evolutionary theory to be correct. The only means by which evolution can explain the variety of species is untold numbers of species to species leaps. We have no real evidence of that ever happening. In fact the evidence suggests otherwise.

A species can mutate till the cows come home but until the cows turn into something other than cows you still have nothing but inter-species mutation, which does not explain the variety of species and which is not evolution.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Gotch</div><div class="ubbcode-body">No.....in the end you have to have that species to species leap for the evolutionary theory to be correct. The only means by which evolution can explain the variety of species is untold numbers of species to species leaps. We have no real evidence of that ever happening. In fact the evidence suggests otherwise.

A species can mutate till the cows come home but until the cows turn into something other than cows you still have nothing but inter-species mutation, which does not explain the variety of species and which is not evolution.



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Horses and Donkeys, Lions and Tigers - There are 2 examples of different species that can still inter-breed. Lung fish have gills but do not need to be in the water all the time due to a being able to get oxigan out of the air (make me think of a jump from fish to anfibian)

If you are looking for old Betsy to have a calf that is NOT a cow it anit going to happen it would take 1000000's of gererations for that kind of think to happen

Horses and donkeys are both members of the same genus (equus if memory serves) Tigers and lions are too of course. No big mystery nor any evidence for species to species evolution there. Not to mention that nearly all such off-spring are sterile

The Lungfish is actually more problematic for the evolutionist than it is evidence to support his theory. The fossil record shows the lungfish appearing suddenly. No transitional forms are available to support adequately the theory of its evolution. But admitting there might be transitional life forms undiscovered, how would the lungfish arrive according to the theory of evolution?

A non-lungfish interacting with environmental change turns into a lungfish yet all other internal organs, egg laying habits and functions remain completely in common with other fish? Why has this transitional creature remained unchanged for all these millions of years?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Why has this transitional creature remained unchanged for all these millions of years? </div></div>

Easy answer is that there have been no Mutations that have benifited that version over one without that mutation.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Counts</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Easy answer is that there have been no Mutations that have benifited that version over one without that mutation.</div></div>

Not so simple though. Why would both the lungfish and the coelacanth remain exactly today as the fossil record shows them 60 million years ago yet according to evolutionist theory other branches of these same creature mutated over and over again to create other entire species and genus? Why would one branch mutate many, many times and another none at all? While we're at it where is the fossil record to support further transitions by any branch either of these FISH? Plenty of fossil's of the two as we find them today exist but no transitional fossils exist.

Therefore we are left with a huge leap of faith by the evolutionist.

I am not an expert by any means but from what I remember (I did doubble check to make sure I was not talking out of my rear end LOL) the LobeFish is an ansester of the Lobe Fish and there are slight differances in Lunfish from Africa and lungfish in South America.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">according to evolutionist theory other branches of these same creature mutated over and over again to create other entire species and genus? </div></div>

No this is NOT what the evolutionist theory says.....Just that the Lungfish was PROBABLY on the same Branch as the animals that first lived out of the water (Not a direct ansester more like a couson if you want to think about it like a family tree)

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Gotch</div><div class="ubbcode-body">No.....in the end you have to have that species to species leap for the evolutionary theory to be correct. The only means by which evolution can explain the variety of species is untold numbers of species to species leaps. We have no real evidence of that ever happening. In fact the evidence suggests otherwise.

A species can mutate till the cows come home but until the cows turn into something other than cows you still have nothing but inter-species mutation, which does not explain the variety of species and which is not evolution.



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Exactly. You have a bunch of different breeds of dogs and cats, but they're still dogs and cats.

Show me a frog that evolved into a mammal and I'll be impressed. [img]/LDPforum/ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/grin.gif[/img]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Counts</div><div class="ubbcode-body">No this is NOT what the evolutionist theory says.....Just that the Lungfish was PROBABLY on the same Branch as the animals that first lived out of the water (Not a direct ansester more like a couson if you want to think about it like a family tree) </div></div>

That seems like a terribly convenient answer for the evolutionist? This creature is presented as a rare example of a transitionary species but when it is pointed out that it remains essentially unchanged for 60 million years then we are told that this is simply a cousin of the actual transitionary, even though no fossil record showing such a transitionary climb exists to support that theory and even though a large fossil record of this animal as it appears today does exist. Seems to require more faith than I can muster.

Not exactly a frog that has turned into a mammal...but how bout a reptile-bird hybrid..
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19208580/

The whole feathered dinosaur debate is actually dividing many in the scientific community right now. Other than it's size this is really no different than any of the other claimed feathered dino discoveries.

Here is part of a letter written by Storrs Olson, the Smithsonian's leading expert on birds and bird fossils. It was addressing "The National Geographic Society":



"The idea of feathered dinosaurs and the theropod origin of birds is being actively promulgated by a cadre of zealous scientists in concert with certain editors at Nature and National Geographic who themselves have become outspoken and highly biased proselytizers of the faith. Truth and careful scientific weighing of evidence have been among the first casualties of their program, which is now fast becoming one of the grander scientific hoaxes of our age ? the paleontological equivalent of cold fusion. If Sloan's article is not the crescendo of this fantasia, it is difficult to imagine to what heights it can next be taken. But it is certain that when the folly has run its course and has been fully exposed, National Geographic will unfortunately play a prominent but unenviable role in the book that summarizes the whole sorry episode."

I didn't have to go looking for that article....was news on yesterday.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: sup-rbeast</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I didn't have to go looking for that article....was news on yesterday. </div></div>

Yeah, I saw it then too. Figured it'd end up on this thread [img]/LDPforum/ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif[/img]

http://ak.imgfarm.com/images/today/c...b/rub0626g.gif

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: elp6n</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><span style="color: #FFFFFF">This article outlines the kind of evolution that I believe truly exists. But despite the scientific evidence there are a fair share of folks that are still disbelievers. (I figured this was the most appropriate spot for posting this.)</span>

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - More than a hundred species of tiny land-breeding frogs in the Caribbean evolved from a single South American species that probably hitched a ride on a raft of vegetation and washed up on an island beach, according to scientists who spent decades collecting tissues from the colorful hoppers.

After years of field research in dense rain forests and remote caves to catalog and collect specimens of different frogs, recent advances in genetic technology enabled researchers to compare their DNA. What they found suggests a sea voyage by an egg-laying South American frog some 30 to 50 million years ago probably led to most of the Caribbean's terrestrial frogs.

"Nothing in the anatomy of these animals told any expert who has studied them over the last century that they were actually close relatives," biologist Blair Hedges, who directed the genetic research, said Saturday from his office at Pennsylvania State University.

By lining up the genetic codes of each species of the genus Eleutherodactylus side-by-side, Hedges said he found something he'd never suspected - the genes of almost all the 160 Caribbean frogs matched, and could be traced through thousands of generations to a single common ancestor.

Hedges and his research team sequenced and compared the DNA of roughly 300 species of frogs collected from South American, Central American and Caribbean forests to support their theory.

A previous theory proposed that frogs traveled across land bridges that linked the major Caribbean islands of Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola and Puerto Rico to South America until 70 million to 80 million years ago. Scientists also believed eastern and western Caribbean frogs had different ancestors.

But an analysis of the "molecular clock" in their genetic codes shows that both eastern and western Caribbean frogs diverged from a common ancestor more recently, said Hedges. A summary of his findings were published online this week in advance of Tuesday's print edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Richard Thomas, an amphibian expert from the University of Puerto Rico who was not involved in Hedges' research, described the study as "significant" and said the claim of a common ancestor for Caribbean frogs seemed "highly plausible" considering the number of genetic codes sequenced.

Understanding the frogs' ancestry and tracing their evolutionary history should help the conservation biologists who are charting their declines due to climate change, pollution and habitat destruction, Hedges said.

With some 90 percent of the Caribbean's original rain forests destroyed, biologists are racing to catalog what remains.

"Species we don't even know about are almost certainly fading away" in the Caribbean, where amphibians face rapidly diminishing habitats on some of the world's most isolated land masses, Thomas said.

---

On the Net:

Proceedings of the National Academies of Science http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0611051104v1
</div></div>

The platypus has a duck-like bill, swims with webbed feet, and lays eggs. Yet nobody calls it a transitional creature between mammals and ducks.Archaeopteryx has long been held up as the great example of a transitional creature, appearing to be part dinosaur and part bird. However, it is a fully formed, complete animal with no half-finished components or useless growths. That is also the case for the other birds in the evolutionary tree. Evolutionists just placed some of the many living and extinct species next to each other to make the bird series.How about the fruitfly studies in the labs? THe have only produced more fruitflies.